Sunday 9th December 2007

If you didn’t hear my second bout with Dr Richard Grayson on the Westminster Hour, you can find it here (five weeks ago we were both resolutely sitting on the fence but I would have predicted that if anything I would have been the Huhney Monster and the Boy Wonder would have been the Clegghead - how times change). Pleased the producers spared my blushes. I hate prerecord interviews; unlike live interviews the pressure isn’t on and the adrenaline steadfastly refuses to flow. Share This

Have just been listening to James Graham and Richard Grayson on the Westminster Hour. James and I haven't always seen eye to eye on everything (!) but we are clearly agreed on this, that Nick is the candidate who can best communicate with the electorate.

There – it’s out in the open. What a weight off our chests. We Liberal Democrats aspire to higher educational standards for our secondary school children than Camden currently provides. (www.thecnj.co.uk/camden/2007/120607/news120607_01.html) Is that a sin? Or even a shock? Isn’t that what we should be aspiring too? How else are we going to get our middle classes to send their children to state schools? Last week Camden’s primary schools were lauded as second best in the land in terms of contextual value added (which measures how much progress the children have made during their time at the school and takes ...

This week's video shows the Housemartins playing live in 1986, with Norman Cook (aka Fat Boy Slim) on bass. Surely one of the most likeable bands of the era? And as a bonus for lovers of agriculture-related pop from the 1980s: XTC with Love on a Farm Boy's Wages.

Richard Grayson helpfully summarises his own argument: Without [a democratic authority], it will always be possible for everyone to blame somebody else without taking responsibility. Ministers can blame local bureaucrats, when those ministers have give the bureaucrats very little independence. Health care bureaucrats can point to rigid central controls, but can also blame the public for making

Chris has argued eloquently against scrapping tuition fees on libdems4chris.org.uk. This is one of the policies that actually repelled me as a Labour Party member at university. I wasn't at all attracted to a party which supported a policy where people who could pay, did not pay. I remember sneaking past two Lib Dem students with a petition to sign on registration day and being glared at for not signing. I didn't pay fees at university. Not a single penny. That was because my parents couldn't afford to pay. Lots of my friends, however, did. That was because their parents ...

Come off it. Do stop it. They are taking the Michael. Giving people the chance to win a fortune in a lottery, if they vote. That's one of the ideas from a commission chaired by Dame Jane Roberts. For the sake of that is sacred, can this idea please be thrown in a lake? What on earth would the suffragettes think of this? People have given their lives to win the right to vote. The idea of giving

The tree’s up, Christmas cake ready for icing and most of the presses and cards brought. In-between we’ve got an important inspection next week at work and several Council-related meetings, too. Congestion Charging or not is one of the issues to debate at full Council next week. I’m going to have to miss the Christmas Prestwich light switch on tomorrow – which is a real shame. We’ve also got

So much for The Power of the Blog - I had a salutary reminder of the power of the mainstream media this week. My girlfriend can be found beaming from page 17 of the Observer Cash supplement today under the headline Abbey bids to rediscover good habits. For those of you who haven’t been following the Observer’s Why Are We Waiting? campaign, the issue concerns the failure of Abbey’s probate and bereavement centre to release dead relatives’ accounts on the basis that apparently too many people died in 2006. What I can vouch for is this: Alex and her mother ...

Keats defined autumn as the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, though I think he would have been surprised at the way mild weather lingers longer these days (not to mention the daffodils that have already been spotted down in the West country). A less welcome lingering comes from Council by-elections. There used to be [...]

I blogged in September about "disturbing claims about UK dairy product prices". Now, Sainsbury and Asda, amongst others, "have agreed to pay the Treasury near-record fines of more than £116 million after they fixed the price of milk, cheese and butter in a scandal estimated to have cost consumers about £270m." It is one of those stories where, if you are not careful, you blink and miss it. So it

{Remote control and TV} Labour Cabinet minister Ed Balls has been in the media today (e.g. see the Sunday Telegraph) talking about the possible effects of advertising on children. Some of this talk is oh so terribly New Labour (10 year plans, setting up new reviews, etc) but at heart there's something to welcome here. So many parents mention the impact that advertising on TV has on their children - shaping their attitudes, setting their tastes, increasing their demands for material goods. It's an area we have to address. As I wrote in September, on the subject of the pressures ...

One thing about being a Lib Dem and having a blog is you inevitably come to the attention of those with an axe to grind. And, the axe they want to grind is always Europe. Now, this may come as a surprise to some, but St Neots IS in Europe. Even if I wanted to, there is very little I can do about it. Where do they want St Neots to be? Oceania? Africa? So frankly, sod 'Europe'. The people who get all in a bother about it are the same sort of nutters who, in America, believe that the ...

I fully support proposals to have dozens more winds farms offshore around the UK, but i wonder what objectors will say. In Norfolk recently objectors have used the excuse that the RAF claim wind farms create problems for their radar stations. Personally I feel this is all a load of old tosh as if they RAF are having problems picking up something just two miles away fro the shoreline, I would want to know why they didn't detect them hundreds of miles away where there are no wind farms at all. With more and more fears about the stability of ...

I have to say, despite their low position in the Championship, despite the cold and wet weather, and despite all the trials and tribulations at Norwich City Football club in recent months, I could not have had more fun than I did yesterday at the Norwich vs Sheffield United match. On other more sunnier days I might have believed my enjoyment owed much to the pre match visit to the bar, but on as grotty a day as I had yesterday hot chocolate was very much the order of the day. But no, my enjoyment yesterday was of watching two ...

We don't often get a chance to go to the cinema, but we have now been to see 'The Golden Compass' - and, yes, it has superb cinematography and convincing CGI effects. Nicole Kidman is terrific, Ian McKellan's voicing of the ice bear is Churchillian at times, and I wish we'd seen more of Daniel Craig. But ... I couldn't work out for some time what the 'but' was....

Zaki Cooper, on the Guardian reminds us that 'some of the staunchest supporters of Christmas come from other religions'. 'Support' seems to imply that Christmas is somehow under the prospect of being cancelled. Undoubtedly renaming Christmas ‘Winterval’, as Birmingham Council did some years ago, allegedly not to offend people of other faiths, is simply barmy. However, this is does not mean in any

I'm not suggesting that Gordon Brown is slow, but if it has taken seven months for Gordon Brown to notice that several Britons were taken hostage in Iraq last May, we truly are blessed with one of the dimmest leaders of all time. His statement today is far too little, far too late.

The Lambeth Liberal Democrats highlight that after 18 months in power Lambeth Labour have seen a precipitous fall in resident confidence here. This should also be of concern to Southwark residents. The temptation of late, across London, to vote against whoever runs the Council, led to swings to Labour in the last Council elections in 2006. This assumes that whoever runs the Council it's all the same in the end. Evidentially it is not. The running and outcomes of both Lambeth and Southwark Councils under minority Liberal Democrat or Liberal Democrat / Conservative administrations improved greatly between 2002-2006. This according ...

I like the cut of Archbishop Sentamu's jib. At a time when the Church of England is in danger of becoming (if it hasn't already become) a laughing stock because of its fixation with sexuality (see Desmond Tutu's remarks), it is good that Rev. Sentamu is highlighting important issues with great flare. First we had him setting up a tent in York Minster to highlight poverty. Now, he's cutting up

Alas Kosovo (or Kosova or Kosove) is coming back into the hot news again. It is clear that the new government in Prishtina will declare independence from Serbia soon, and may only have delayed for a few weeks through frantic appeals from the European Union - effectively to delay secession and the probably inevitable start of a war until after the 2007 Christmas Holidays. The mess and uproar in early January 2008 will be impressive. It looks as if this will be the first complex of foreign policy choices facing our new party leadership. Can we marshal some context and ...

A moment of thoughtfulness struck me today. We had left the pub after a lovely lunch, that started as just going for a drink. After lunch we went to buy our Christmas tree. As I was paying for our aptly named ‘humbug tree' I got a call from a good friend and colleague. After our conversation, about telephone canvassing and politics, I realised that we really do not do family days that...

Camden Council have recently sold the land upon which Frank Barnes School stands. Frank Barnes School, however, is a unique school it is the only primary school in London which is solely BSL and does not rely on oral teaching too

Am I the only person left in the country who thinks Ricky Hatton is a thug, his ’sport’ is thuggish, and that glorifying this thuggishness does no-one any good at all? I was listening to his mother being interviewed on the radio yesterday - her biggest hope for her son’s future is that he knows to pack it all in while he can “still remember the last fight.” Some ambition.

OK lets explain this one. We all know that Ming had set out on a program of internal change, and the consensus seems to be that this was required, but it seemed to involve the wielding of a very blunt weapon indeed - the removal of anyone at all perceived to be immediately associated with the previous regime. The small Kennedy bunker was removed - but replaced by an even smaller Campbell bunker. The wider plan, worthy of a chapter in Suetonius, was only partly actioned by the time he resigned. Many of Ming's victims and 'marked men' have now ...

I cannot believe that the government are set to have another root and branch review of the whole primary school curriculum. This year already schools are starting to introduce the new literacy and numeracy frameworks, which in essence is seeing 40% of lessons each day having to be re-planned, re-organised and re-resourced and this is no small task both in man hours and in financial terms. Now the government want to further overburden schools by reviewing the whole curriculum and no doubt making further changes. What the teaching profession needs is at least a three year moratorium of no more ...

I was told some very interesting information by someone the other day. A councillor in a Tory run council told me that in a ward, a number of applications to build houses on land the council refers to as "backfill", have been rejected because the council has a policy of normally turning down "backfill" applications. However, in this councillors ward a backfill application has been allowed, completely contrary to the council's stated policy. I personally gained a better understanding of why this application, which is against the council's policy, might have been allowed when I leanrt that the application was ...

No it is not a joke. The BNP have linked themselves to the Girl Guide Association in order to argue it is acceptable that they don't allow any members from black or asian backgrounds. The BNP website states: Why don't you let blacks and Asians into the BNP? For the same reason the Girl Guides don't allow boys to join. Unlike the Girl Guides who do not campaign against boys and issues, the BNP

A way to empower citizens during the days of terrorism? Or irresponsible of a former SAS member to divulge his 'secrets' such as extensive advice on lock picking? Those were the questions I asked myself after reading through a spy manual - a book I picked up whilst lazily trawling through the bookshelves of my local Oxfam, strangely enough. It's aiming to be an introduction to the work of an intelligence agency rather than advise on how to commit crime - and in the introduction it says that, as intelligence agencies do not act within the framework of national or ...

Today it is Vince Cable's comment that the Lib Dem leadership race is very close and he would be happy to work with wither of the candidates. I saw the interview on the Andrew Marr show this morning. I saw it as a bland statement which in essence gives nothing away, still gives everyone an incentive to vote, and favours no one candidate over the other. Yet upon this statement being made, team Huhne are using it as further justification of their assetion that the result will be very close. I personalky don't see it the same way. Vince Cable ...

Comedian and local resident Neil Mullarky gets instructions from Cllr Alexis Rowell on what to say to the crowd! I can exclusively reveal that he was telling them that the tree was paid for by England's Lane residents, with all except three contributing. The lights were cabled up by Camden Council's street lighting dept. The decorations were made out of household rubbish (see photos) by pupils from St Paul's Primary, South Hampstead School for Girls and by the St Mary's Youth Group. The Belsize Police Safer Neighbourhoods Team came in on a rest day to control traffic. Mulled wine was ...

One of many things on which we can all agree is that Vince Cable has shone as acting leader of the party. This morning he gave a ten minute interview to Andrew Marr covering defence, the economy (including house prices) and the leadership contest which he described as “very close”. You can watch the interview here.

Needless to say, I mean this as a compliment. Reading this article I finally started to understand what he is getting at with all this fear business. As is often the way with Nick, I struggle womanfully to comprehend what he is going on about for at least four “shots” of information, be they articles or speeches [...]

Most of you probably never heard of Steve Williams, but you should. Steve and his wife Sue were the Resident Friends at Quaker House Belfast during the most explosive stage of the recent Troubles. They created an island of calm in which people literally violently opposed could start to make some kind of other contact. To the end of his life Steve was quietly discreet about his dealings with such people as Gerry Adams and various Loyalist Paramilitaries… Someday the work of such quiet background peacemakers will be recognised and properly celebrated. Steve and Sue also worked in other trouble ...

Lord Rennard's piece in Lib Dem News has rightly generated much debate. The piece itself was rather defensive in tone and this is not surprising - the question that Chris has answered is a question which relates not only to Chris's well understood strategy of ruthless targetting and throwing everything at By-Elections but to his personal position. Certain 'Senior Party Figures' have been upping the volume on the argument that the strategy is too limited James Graham challenges their existence: if it is true that there are a few people in the party who believe in “abandoning what we have ...

I was just re-reading St Pancras Station by Simon Bradley and I was reminded of a tour I organised round the old station hotel buildings before it closed for the full refurbishment that is currently taking place. It would be a shame not to share these here - St Pancras Station is one of the most dominant buildings of London - an amazing level of detail, quality confirmed by a total sense of place. The history is that in May 1865 - with the railway station already being constructed - Midland Railway Company launched a competition for the design of ...

GNER is dead. It is no more. It is an ex-company. The last GNER train rolled out of Kings Cross yesterday evening. This is very sad. I loved GNERs blend of contemporary and traditional branding - lovely sans serif logo with the old crest embossed in to things like seat covers. Bizarrely, in October they relaunched their web site (now pulled) and carried on that combination very effectively. But the loss of the branding isn’t the main reason I’ll miss GNER, I’ll miss them because they were distinctive, and they set new quality levels for other train companies to aspire ...

It is according to the Independent. "The Independent on Sunday has learnt that, in an astonishing U-turn, the Secretary of State for Business, John Hutton, will announce that he is opening up the seas around Britain to wind farms in the biggest ever renewable energy initiative... enough wind farms to produce 25 gigawatts (GW) of electricity by 2020, in addition to the 8GW already planned – enough to meet the needs of all the country's homes." Furthermore it was Brown himself wot dunnit, they say. "In a confidential memorandum, Gordon Brown was advised that the target was expensive and faced ...

There are about five days left to go in this leadership election, and the party is split in two - between those who are calling for a longer election, and those who’d like the whole thing to be over now! A look at Google News suggests the Sunday papers fall in to the latter category. They haven’t commented much on the leadership election, but Chris has popped up in a few places. Today’s Independent on Sunday says: Durham Police last week opened talks with the Audit Commission, the spending watchdog, over the circumstances under which the scheme was granted planning ...

City Councillors have been advised by the Waste Management Department of a phased City-wide increase in recycling service provision as follows:"For the past few years we have been constantly implementing additional recycling services as and when possible. Currently we have no additional funding available to allow us to implement any new services but following a great many requests from members of the public, we are now in a position to offer households larger and/or additional recycling bins. "Although not a "new" service as such, this forms part of the commitment to increasing recycling throughout the city and consistently seeking to ...

{Serious Fraud Office logo} A new criminal investigation into allegations of corruption in arms deals is set to interview dozens of senior staff at BAE Systems. The investigation will cover six separate arms deals which may have involved corrupt payments to middlemen. As the Sunday Times reports: Whitehall officials say dozens of senior BAE executives are to be interviewed in the next two months about alleged bribery involving more than £80m in secret commissions. The money is said to have been paid to middlemen involved in lucrative government arms contracts in South Africa, Tanzania, Romania and two other countries. The ...

Does your surname have to rhyme with Peter's to post on here today?!These comments may not represent the Liberal Democrat Party or the views of Taunton Deane Borough Council, or their branch of Unison.

The linked story from Yesterday's Guardian is an interesting one. It raises the question as to what parameters should permit the state to intervene. In this case a child was allowed to walk to school alone. (under a mile). It raises another question about the subjectivity of our systems of child protection. What is acceptable to one person, is risky to another. However, at what point should

From the Wales on Sunday: A political row erupted over Henson’s train shame last night after the Shadow Health Minister stepped in to defend the star. Jonathan Morgan – who has spoken out against binge-drinking in the past – said it was the player’s “own business what he gets up to”. Hard drinking was part of the culture of the Welsh game, he said. Mr Morgan said: “Of course, it does set a bad example but no more than anybody else in the public eye. “We can’t escape the fact it can have an effect on young people that he’s ...

There have been a few elections recently, I am not referring to the very flawed Russian one - I am talking about ones were people are actually allowed to vote for who they want and all valid votes (and only valid votes) are counted.

The whole notion of coalition has stirred up some sediment (or should that be sentiment?!) about the issue. At the moment the voting from my visitors in terms of coalition with the Tories goes 11% absolutely, 26% never and by far the majority, 61% in certain circumstances. I am going to put up another poll to see if this turns out similarly re Labour. I am interested in what the circumstances may be in which we should consider a coalition? I am even more interested in what the red lines would be for people. Whilst I feel sick at the ...

From the Observer: Tony Palmer, who has won more than 40 awards including Baftas, Emmys and, uniquely, the Prix Italia twice, criticised the director-general after the BBC turned down a documentary of his. The film, about English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, has been produced by Five instead. Palmer said he received an extraordinary rejection letter from a BBC commissioning editor explaining that, 'having looked at our own activity via the lens of find, play & share', it had been decided the film did not fit with 'the new vision for [BBC] Vision'. Bizarrely, Palmer said, the letter concluded: 'But good ...

The link is to the story of the Ward family in Cambridgeshire. They were unusual in that they managed to win their case. What normally happens when totally innocent parents get trapped in the system is that they lose their children.

Labour Government spending priorities came into sharp focus last night when the Prime Minister and his Chancellor blocked a £725m rescue package for 125,000 workers who lost pension rights when their employers went bust or wound up their schemes. It seems that Labour are able to find £25 billion to bail out Northern Rock bank, a loan that is increasing by £3 billion a week, without any guarantees that the taxpayer will get its money back, but when it comes to stumping up £725m to allow the 125,000 workers to enjoy the same rights as people who are protected by ...

On Monday morning I awoke to the dulcet tones of our acting leader on 5Live's "Wake up to Money". Vince was putting forward an eminently sensible proposal that rather than mortgage companies repossessing houses, they should look at a shared ownership option. Michael Coogan from the Council of Mortgage lenders tended to disagree. However, later this week, my own Managing Director, Clive Briault, warned that up to 1.4 million householders, with fixed rate mortgages that expired next year, could find themselves in difficulties. Last year the FSA published the Baseline Survey an ambitious survey that measured the financial capability of ...

I always look forward to Matt Withers' Spin Doctor column in the Wales on Sunday. His coruscating wit is often the most readable part of that paper. This week he has highlighted an unfortunate stray apostrophe on a Mike German press release. Matt writes: “IT’S a poor government that can’t get it’s (sic) own plans right,” said Lib Dem leader Mike German last week in a press release regarding the Assembly Government’s proposed plans for school transport legislation. Yep. And it’s a poor party leader that can’t get elementary punctuation right. ITS own plans, Mike. Back to school, by transport ...

I have had a bit of criticism for allowing a particular comment on my blog. I used to moderate comments but then thought it was a little illiberal, to be in favour of free speech, unless people were saying stuff I didn't agree with, or approve of. So, reluctantly, I have turned my comments moderator back on. I have no idea how to remove comments, so if someone can instruct me I will do that too. So, sorry Ms/r Anonymous, from now on, like me, you will have to own your comments.

Today’s Sunday Times carries a report based on a lengthy interview with Liberal Democrat London Mayor candidate Brian Paddick: SIR IAN BLAIR, the embattled Metropolitan police commissioner, has been further undermined by claims that his force has become arrogant with power and that a group of senior officers see themselves as “untouchable”. Brian Paddick, the former deputy [...]

The Sunday Times reports: ONE of Labour’s biggest donors was able secretly to channel more than £300,000 into the party’s election funds through an Islamic lobby group that hid his identity. Inquiries by The Sunday Times have established that Imran Khand, a 43-year-old computer entrepreneur, was behind three large donations to the party earlier this year. But his [...]

The Councillors Commission, chaired by the former Labour leader of Camden Council (Jane Roberts), is due to report to the Government on Monday and leaks to the media suggest some highly controversial proposals will be included. The media coverage has led on proposals to significantly increase the money paid to councillors. But in the leaks are two other [...]

Wednesday: The mystery man who recently went to the police claiming that he has NO MEMORY of the last DECADE may have been involved in a FRAUD on the Public. Despite claims that his partner – who has now left the country – wished him dead, they have been seen together identified in this new photographic evidence. The moving finger… {Posted by Picasa} Mr Frown was described as "without a paddle".

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